Postal Service spokesman says too early to tell impact

Photographs by ERIN MCCRACKEN / COURIER & PRESS
Postal Service worker Tammy McCoy helps regular customer, Emma Snow, mail out envelopes Wednesday afternoon at the Washington Avenue Post Office. The Postal Service announced plans Wednesday to eliminate Saturday mail delivery beginning in August as a way to cut costs. However, delivery of larger packages would still occur on Saturday. Snow doesn’t like the idea of losing a day of mail delivery, and hoped the recent increase in postal rates would have helped to continue operating six days a week.

ERIN MCCRACKEN / COURIER & PRESS
Dixie Wilsbacher stuffs Valentine packages for her two grandchildren in Wisconsin at the Washington Avenue Post Office on Wednesday afternoon. The Postal Service announced plans Wednesday to eliminate Saturday mail delivery beginning in August as a way to cut costs. However, delivery of larger packages would still occur on Saturday. Wilsbacher is not upset about the announcement, if it means that more postal workers will be able to spend time with family on the weekends instead of working.

Johnathan Driskell addresses an envelope as he waits in line Wednesday afternoon at the Washington Avenue Post Office. “I use the post office quite a bit,” Driskell said. Driskell, a frequent eBay seller said the plans of the Postal Service to eliminate Saturday mail delivery might impact him and his business a little. “It’s just one more day I can’t send stuff out or receive mail or Netflicks, but I guess I will just have to wait an extra day or two for things,” he said.

EVANSVILLE - What impact would the elimination of Saturday mail delivery have on local U.S. Postal Service jobs? It depends on who you ask.

On Wednesday, the Postal Service announced plans to eliminate Saturday mail delivery in August as a way to cut costs.

Shortly after the announcement, Postal Service spokesman David Walton was short on details on how the news might affect the organization's Evansville-area workforce.

"It's too early to tell what the impact will be to employees," Walton said.

Walton said he was also unsure how long it will be before the Postal Service knows the answer to the question.

Walton did say the shift to five-day-a-week delivery will impact not just letter carriers but other Postal Service employees, too.

Meanwhile, a union representative expressed more certainty about job losses.

Currently Evansville has 136 postal routes covered by 162 carriers, said Al Griffin, president of the Evansville office of the National Association of Letter Carriers.

Those 162 include 136 carriers with a regular route, and 26 replacement, or "swing" carriers, who cover different routes on different days to cover their colleagues' days off.

If the Postal Service eliminates Saturday deliveries, Griffin said, all carriers would have their Saturdays and Sundays off, eliminating the need for swing carriers.

"Those 26 people, their routes would be gone if that happened," he said.

Job cuts would be made on the basis of seniority, Griffin said, but still 26 carrier positions would be eliminated.

But Griffin also expressed hope that Wednesday's announcement might not actually come to pass.

"August is a long way off," he said, "and there's a lot of things that could happen between now and August."

The Postal Service is also in the midst of closing about half its 461 mail processing centers. The closures began last year and are expected to continue into 2014.

Evansville's processing center will remain open.

At one time, Walton said, the Postal Service anticipated expanding Evansville's center to handle the expected increase in mail volume coming from the closed centers.

Lingering financial struggles, though, have caused the Postal Service to change those plans, Walton said. Instead, the organization will "make do" with the facility as it currently exists.

"At this point, we don't plan to expand that (Evansville) facility."

"People have to understand the financial plight we're in right now. It's not good," he said.